The Autumn Queen No. 9 – Treason

I went to visit him, there in the dark, where those who have committed the worst crimes are kept. I walked down the dank halls where the ghosts of our nation’s birth lived — soldiers who had given everything to see the queen’s coronation, who ultimately failed, as she did. They had been down there so long, they were silent, simply waiting for time to die, as they would not, without some measure of violence.

I could see him huddled in the back of the cell, and I could smell the reek of him, blood and piss, sweat and shit. “Kellis,” I called, crooning to him as though he were a feral animal, sing-songing to him to see if he would come closer to me.

“Elodie?”

He was at the front in an instant, and hand my hand in his, through the bars. His grip was fierce, and the knives came faster than I could have imagined. “Kellis,” I pled. “This can’t be changed. What you did… it’s treason.”

“What we did, Elodie. What we did for Elias. That was treason,” he said. “What I did after? That was love.”